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Controversy over far-right AfD member joining former concentration camp board

Politicians from the far-right AfD could soon be represented on a board that oversees former Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Survivor groups are appalled. But some observers say excluding the party could backfire.

The success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in last month's Lower Saxony elections is causing a headache for establishment parties and the state's Memorials Foundation. In previous years, each party represented in the Landtag, or state parliament, sent one member to sit on the foundation's oversight board. Following the current rules, a representative from the AfD, which won more than 6 percent of the vote in the October 15 Lower Saxony election, would also get a seat.

The Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation is in charge of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, the site of a former concentration camp where visitors can learn about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

Controversy over German remembrance culture

Among the Memorials Foundation's main tasks is to "appropriately commemorate the victims of Nazi persecution and to ensure their life stories are not lost" and "support historical and civic education relating to Nazi crimes and to encourage reflection about their significance for the present," according to its website.

Some AfD members wanted Höcke expelled after his Holocaust remarks, but that never happened

Prominent AfD members in the past have stirred controversy for making anti-Semitic statements. Björn Höcke, head of the AfD in the eastern-German state of Thuringia, earlier this year called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a "monument of shame" and said that German remembrance culture should first and foremost consist of teaching people about the great achievements of their forefathers.

The AfD parliamentary group in Lower Saxony has not replied to DW's request for comment for this story.

Preserving ideals or creating martyrs?

News of a possible AfD member on the Memorial Foundation's board has sparked backlash from Holocaust survivor associations.

Former Bergen-Belsen prisoner Shraga Milstein wrote a letter from Israel saying the thought of a member of this "revisionist and racist" party on the board was "unbearable" to him. Milstein was 12 when British soldiers rescued him from the camp in 1945.

The director of the Memorials Foundation, Jens-Christian Wagner, has received other worried letters from survivors' associations in the US, France and Israel.

"We have to take these concerns seriously," Wagner said in a statement. "It would be wrong to ignore the AfD. [But] dealing with them and their positions has to happen in a public forum … The foundation board is the wrong place for this. One hopes that the AfD will not send a representative to sit on the board."

Tens of thousands of people died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II

However, some observers fear that excluding the AfD would send the wrong message.

"I don't think changing the rules to exclude the AfD is a good idea," Michael Fürst, chairman of the Association of Jewish Communities in Lower Saxony, told DW. "That would only turn them into martyrs. Us other board members are strong enough to deal with an AfD representative."

'Opposite of everything foundation wants to achieve'

Lukas Welz, chairman of Amcha Germany, an aid organization for Holocaust survivors, vividly remembers how, during the national election campaign this fall, the right-wing populists put up an election poster with the picture of a pregnant woman and the line "We'll make new Germans ourselves" in front of the Bergen-Belsen memorial.

Displaying this xenophobic, anti-immigration poster right by the former concentration camp was a deliberate provocation by the AfD, Welz said.

"Thinking about this and the fact that survivors' organizations are so opposed to an AfD member on the board, I've come to the conclusion that the AfD cannot be on the foundation's board, because the party is the opposite of everything the foundation wants to achieve," he told DW.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

Fleeing from the Nazis

In 1933, Anne Frank fled from Germany to the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. In the Second World War, she had to go into hiding under the German occupation. For two years, she lived concealed in the secret annex of a house in Amsterdam. But someone betrayed her: On August 4, 1944, her family was found, arrested and deported to Auschwitz.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

Family ties

Anne Frank (front left) had a sister Margot (back right) who was three-and-a-half years older than she was. Her father, Otto Frank, took this photo on Margot's eighth birthday in February 1934, when the family was already in exile in the Netherlands.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

The hiding place in Amsterdam

Anne's father was able to found a company in Amsterdam. It had its headquarters in this building (c.). Otto organized the "secret annex" above and behind the premises. The family of four lived there from 1942 to 1944, together with four other people on the run from the Nazis. It was here that Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary. The Anne Frank House has been a museum since 1960.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

A diary as best friend

From the start, Anne wrote in her diary almost every day. It became a kind of friend to her, and she called it Kitty. The life she led was completely different from her previous, carefree existence. "What I like the most is that I can at least write down what I think and feel, otherwise I would completely suffocate," she penned.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

Death in Bergen-Belsen

Anne Frank and her sister were taken from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on October 30, 1944. More than 70,000 people died in this concentration camp. After the liberation of the camp, the victims were transported to mass graves under the supervision of British soldiers. Anne and Margot Frank were among those to die here from typhus. Anne was just 15 years old.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

Anne's tombstone

Anne's tombstone also stands in Bergen-Belsen. This Jewish girl from Frankfurt had imagined her life differently. "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to bring joy and aid to the people who live around me, but who don't know me all the same. I want to live on, even after my death," she wrote in her diary on April 5, 1944.

Betrayed, deported, world-famous

Made famous by a diary

Her great dream was to become a journalist or author. Thanks to her father, her diary was published on July 25, 1947. An English version was brought out in 1952. Anne Frank became a symbol for the victims of the Nazi dictatorship. "We all live with the aim of attaining happiness; we all live differently, but the same." Anne Frank, July 6, 1944.

Author: Iveta Ondruskova / tj

The board in its current, pre-election configuration will meet in December to discuss the issue. Member Sven Bratmann, who represents the state parliament's center-left Social Democrats (SPD), believes that the addition of the AfD would not stop the Memorials Foundation from achieving its goals.

"We are doing good work and one AfD board member would not be able to stop us," Bratmann told DW. "But the good atmosphere we've had in our meetings so far would probably change."

Instead of every parliamentary party automatically being represented on the foundation board, Bratmann has another suggestion.

"We could vote on the board members the Landtag sends to the foundation," he said. "This way, AfD members would have to explain why they want to be on the board."

If the other parliamentary groups weren't convinced by what the AfD members had to say, they wouldn't get elected, Bratmann said. "I think this could be a solution."